Collocation presents a method where a number of words are regularly

utilized together, and look natural together. Also, this points to constraints on
the way words can be utilized together, for instance which nouns and verbs may
be utilized together as well as what kind of prepositions and verbs may be
utilized together.

For example, we use the expression "heavy rain" or "light rain" rather than
"strong rain" or "mild rain" because "heavy" and "light" better fits with rain
unlike the word "strong" or "mild". This kind of language behavior is named
"collocation". There are a lot of states in English language while it becomes
hard to recognize which words fit finely with the word we desire to utilize due
to the non-existence of clear rules. There are certain words that seem right
together, whereas other words do not.

Collocation is a normal mixture of words closely associated with one

another. "Pay attention", "fast food", "make an effort", and "powerful engine"
are but only some examples. The advantage of collocations lies in making it
simpler to keep away from worn-out or vague words like "very", "nice", or
"beautiful", via utilizing a couple of words that suits the context in a better way
and carries a more accurate meaning. Skillful utilizers of language may generate
impacts like humour via changing the usual collocation patterns. This method is
particularly accepted with journalists, poets and advertisers.

Collocations might look natural to native English speakers, yet they are unclear
to foreign speakers of English language. For example, the word "dark" does not
collocate with the term "tea", but rather with "chocolate"

A number of collocations such as "take a photo" are fixed, in which no word

other than "take" collocates with "photo" to give the right meaning. A lot of
collocations are wide open for using a number of different words to give the
same meaning, for instance using "keep to the rules" or "stick to the rules"
where both phrases give the same meaning.

As for idioms, they are phrases in which the words together carry a meaning
differs from the lexical definitions of single terms or words.

Definition of Collocation

McCarthy (1984) defines collocations as "units of meaning formed with two or

more words The words are usually written separately, but some may have a
hyphen or be written as one word. Often, the meaning of the collocation can be
guessed by knowing the meaning of the individual words"

Thornbury (2007) states that “two words are collocates if they occur together
with more than chance frequency, such that, when we see one, we can make a
fairly safe bet that the other is in the neighborhood

According to Richards, J & Schmidt (2010) "Collocation is the way in which

words are used together regularly. Collocation refers to the restrictions on how
words can be used together, for example which prepositions are used with
particular verbs, or which verbs and nouns are used together. For example, in
English the verb perform is used with operation, but not with discussion:

- The doctor performed the operation.

- The committee performed a discussion. Instead we say:

The committee held/had a discussion. Perform is used with (collocates with)

operation, and hold and have collocate with discussion"(.

Likewise, Benson et al. (1986) offer a simpler definition “In English, as in other
languages, there are many fixed, identifiable, non-idiomatic phrases and
constructions. Such groups of words are called recurrent combinations, mixed
combinations, or collocations”.
Also, Goudarzi and Moini (2012) illustrate collocations and define them as “the
company that words keep” .

Collocations are fixed expressions in part or in full that grow recognized and
well-known via frequent use depending on the context. Phrases such as 'middle
management', 'crystal clear', 'nuclear family', and 'cosmetic surgery' are some
instances of collocations made of two words .

The collocation processing entails several parameters, the measure of

association is the most important one. Gledhill suggests that collocation
includes as a minimum (3) different viewpoints:

(a) Co-occurrence.

(b) Construction.

(c) Expression.

Types of Collocation

We can find 6 major kinds of collocations, they are as the following:

1) adjective plus noun,

2) noun plus noun,

3) verb plus noun,

4) adverb plus adjective,

5) verbs plus prepositional phrase,

6) verb plus adverb.

1) adjectives and nouns

a) Hilda likes yellow or pink or whatever light color.

 b) They got the chance in a short chat on Egypt but they did not get the
opportunity to talk about it enough.
c) Poverty is a major problem in some countries in Asia.
d) Preventing wars in the world is a key issue for UN.

2. Nouns and verbs

- John's plane takes off at 6:00 pm tomorrow.
- The bird laid an egg yesterday.
- The work has expanded and is getting more money now.
- The financial corruption poses a problem for Iraq and its people.

3. Nouns + nouns

We find many collocations with the pattern a ... of ... or without

- I saw a school of fish in the middle of the sea.

- She felt a sense of pride when she was awarded a medal.
- The student has a case study as part of the graduation research.
- The pressure group has a great influence on crucial decisions

4. Verbs and expressions with prepositions

- When George graduated from university with high marks, he saw his
mother feeling pride.
- The woman was filled with horror as soon as she saw the lion.
- When her father was angry on the little child, she burst into tears.

5. Verbs and adverbs

- He acted bitterly with his friend.
- She treated her mother and father well.
 - He whispered softly to his lover Sandy about their marriage.
- He arrived early in the morning to help his father.

6. Adverbs and adjectives

- Some of our friends were blissfully married.
- He should be completely aware of some risks in skating.
- Janet simply accepted his proposal.
- Sam was totally unaware that his wife was pregnant

Importance of Collocation:

The 2nd short-term report presented by Harold Palmer about Collocations of

English language in 1933 emphasized the collocation significance as a solution
so as to generate a normal language among all learners of a non-native
language. Therefore, in the years after 1940, information on frequent word
combinations grew to be a typical characteristic of the dictionaries for
monolingual learners. When those dictionaries grew less word-centered and
more phrase-centered, an increasing attention and interest were given to
collocation. This tendency was enhanced early in the twenty first century via the
provision of large corpora of texts and clever corpus-questioning software like
drawing device, which allows to present an extra organized explanation of
collocation in lexicons. lexicons like Macmillan and Longman have lists of
recurrent collocations.

Example:

- Once upon a time the rabbit fooled the lion with a fake account.
- The tiger has more lion sense than a lion.
- It knows when to stop hunting and it knows when to stop running.
 - He is an unbelievable youth, possessing an iron will and nerves of steel,
two merits helped him grow to be the genius he is now.
- The acting commissioner of real-estates said,
- The Department will make zero tolerance for designers, contractors, and
owners who do not succeed in taking the right measures to ensure their
construction locations and buildings.

IDIOMS

Definition: According to Jackendoff (1997), an idiom is an expression or a

fixed phrase having a literal meaning or a figurative one in some times. In
classifying the idiom's figurative meaning as a standard language, it is different
from the literal meaning. There exists a large number of idioms in all languages.
Thus, it is expected that the number of idiomatic expressions may reach to about
25.000 in English(xii) .

An idiom can be defined as a phrase where the words jointly carry a meaning
differs from the lexicon definitions of single terms. The idiom is one of speech
types or a phrase of a particular language grammatically odd to itself or may not
be explicit to the solitary meanings of the idiom's components. Hence, English
learners often have difficulty with idioms in realizing the actual meaning
without referring to an English dictionary of idioms. The English language
include thousands of idioms, most of which are informal.

Importance of Idioms:

Idioms have in common intellectual and chronological information and enlarge

the language comprehension and handling of individuals. There are two
important different definitions of idioms cited in the New Webster’s Dictionary
(1993):
(1) "the language peculiar to a people, country, class, community or, more
rarely, an individual";

(2) "a construction or expression having a meaning different from the literal one
or not according to the usual patterns of the language" .

Many attempts have been made to define the term ‘idiomatic expression’
(e.g. Katz and Postal, 1963: 275; Fraser, 1970: 22; Makkia 1972: 23; Kövecses
and Szabó, 1996: 326) all stress, especially, Kövecses and Szabó (1996: 326),
that the meaning of an idiomatic expression is indirect and cannot be deduced
purely by reference to the meaning of its lexical components since idioms are
“linguistic expressions whose overall meaning cannot be predicted from the
meanings of their constituent parts”. Domyati (2009) provides two examples:
Literally means that (everybody drags fire to their own loaf of bread) i.e.,
everyone looks after their own interests However, in the previous example, it is
clear that the intended meaning is completely different from the literal meaning.
This characteristic of idiomatic expressions means that they often pose
difficulties when attempts are made to render them into other languages.

Other definitions have also emphasized that the structure of an idiomatic

expression follows the structure of the language in which it was originally
coined. Consequently, idioms may be as long as a sentence or as short as a
clause or phrase.

Idioms are constantly special things in relation to any language. They establish
certain distinguishing characteristics which make one language different from
the other. Furthermore, idioms mirror some cultural habits and show the
national nature.

They are not a detached segment of the person's selected language to utilize or
to neglect, rather they constitute a fundamental segment of the English general
vocabulary. And, the language vocabulary is increasing and changing between
time and time with old idioms and new ones which need to be placed in
perspective and this can be achieved this increasing and changing in the
language vocabulary is described.

In all languages, there are idioms, and there are thousands of idioms in the
English language. They are frequently mystifying and bewildering because the
meaning of the entire words collection altogether has almost nothing, or very
little, connected with the meaning of terms if they are utilized individually .

For the sake of understanding a language, we should recognize and identify

what is the meaning of that language idioms and If one attempts to guess the
idiom's literal meaning word by word, he/she shall be puzzled for one should
know its concealed meaning. Thus, learning and teaching a language may be
difficult and complicated because of idioms.

As vocabulary and culture are entwined, native and non-native speakers may get
extra vocabulary through idioms and on the other hand may know other
information about idioms in being exposed to the target culture, and thus they
will improve their skills of listening, speaking, writing and reading.

Idiomatic Expressions
Unlike collocations, these words are put together forming a new meaning. It is
informal English or what we may call slang.
Example:
I know how much you wanted to make it to the finals. I'm sorry to say this; You
were close, but no cigar.
Explanation:
The expression, 'close, but no cigar' means that something or someone is very
near but did not make it to a destination or goal. It has nothing to do with a
cigar.
Example:
The coast is clear! Dave, you can come out now, she is gone.
Explanation:
In the previous sentence we have the idiomatic expression 'the coast is clear'.
Put that aside for a moment and look at the rest of the sentence. 'Dave, you can
come out now, she's gone'. The phrase 'come out' is a collocation which means
to stop hiding. 'She's gone' tells us that the person Dave is hiding from has
already left. From this, we can now come up with the conclusion that it is now
safe for Dave to come out because the person he is hiding from has already left.
It can now be assumed that the expression 'the coast is clear'was used as
announcement that everything is fine now, that there is no danger of being
caught.
Collocations and idiomatic expressions are similar in a way that they are
composed of two or more words put together. However, when they do differ,
the first retains its literal meaning and the second loses it.

Idiomatic expressions and collocations

As indicated in the previous discussion, languages have an abundance of

idiomatic expressions, the meaning of which cannot be determined simply by
analyzing their components individually because they are based on either
metaphor or metonymy (Kövecses and Szabó, 1996: 326).

It seems difficult to distinguish idiomatic expressions from other linguistic

phenomena such as proverbs, contextual expressions and commonly used
linguistic structures which are mainly built on part-whole relationship. Thus,
researchers such as Al-Anbar (2001) found close similarities between some
proverbs and idiomatic expressions whilst Kövecses and Szabó (1996:327)
claim that idiomatic expressions include the use of:

1-Metaphors: (spill the beans).

2-Metonymy: (throw up one’s hands).

3-Pairs of words: (cats and dogs).

4-Sayings:(A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush).

5- Phrasal verbs: (come up).

It will be suggested later that those idiomatic expressions based on the use of
metaphor or metonymy are different from those based on the use of
collocations, proverbs, and the kind of common metonymy and metaphor which
is used in everyday speech.

Jaeger (1999: 125-126) differentiates between idioms and figures of speech on a

number of bases. First, the meaning of an idiom is immediately clear, whereas
the meaning of a figure of speech can be hidden or obscure.

Second, the meaning of an idiom is known to speakers beforehand but the

meaning of a figure of speech needs an introduction and, thus, cannot serve as a
means of instant communication.

Third, as a means of communication idioms are available to all participants –

speakers and hearers alike - and, consequently, they are accepted for use in
everyday speech. However, figures of speech tend to be exclusive to the
speaker.

Fourth, synonyms are widespread among idioms, but there are no proper
synonyms among figures of speech, although other figures may be used to
express related ideas. It is also worth noting that many idiomatic expressions are
included in those books designed primarily to discuss proverbs. For instance,
Al-Anbar (2001) discusses some commonly used expressions as though they
were idiomatic expressions. Although these expressions are mainly based on
synecdoche or metonymy, they should not be described as idiomatic
expressions. Thus, the idiomatic ) expression is literally translated, (so my heart
appealed to Islam) is a commonly used expression that can be translated using
the same lexical equivalents, it can be said that it has a metaphorical sense.
Similarly, the expression so (he came back to us with nothing) is a commonly
used expression which only needs to be contextualized in order to clarify its
meaning. Oumar (2007) claims that idiomatic expressions are a type of
collocation expression, because they are composed of juxtaposed and recurrent
lexical items. He also believes that idiomatic expressions include proverbs;
Prophetic wise-sayings, everyday expressions used on particular occasions

May God keep you in luxury); greetings and compliments, e.g. ‫السالم‬
‫)علبكم‬Peace be upon you), ‫( دمتم بخير‬May God preserve you); commonly-used
expressions which make reference to sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, and
social tribes. He also considers dictionary expressions to be collocational ones,
e.g. ( ‫( )ذھبو مذرا شذرا‬spread far and wide). It should be noted that a number of
scholars who have distinguished idiomatic expressions from other structures
have expressed different views to Oumar’s (2007) claim that idiomatic
expressions should be viewed as a type of collocation. Husam Al-Din (1985:34)
and Nicolas (1995:234-235) draw a distinction between idiomatic expressions
and collocations or contextual expressions. Nunberg et al. (1994: 492)
distinguish between idiomatic expressions and other structures such as fixed
phrases, collocations, clichés, saying, proverbs and allusions. To discuss
Oumar’s claim, let us consider his definition of collocations (2007: 29): These
are linguistic elements that communicate their meaning by using two or more
successive as well as juxtaposed linguistic components.

Conclusion

An idiomatic expression is a phrase with a non-literal meaning, while a

collocation is a group of words that naturally occur together; here are a few
examples of each with explanations and usage in a sentence:

Idiomatic expressions:
  "A piece of cake":

Meaning - Something very easy to do.

 Example: "The test was a piece of cake for her; she studied a lot."

 "Kill two birds with one stone":

Meaning - To achieve two things with a single action.

 Example: "By going to the grocery store on my way home, I can

kill two birds with one stone."

 "Let the cat out of the bag":

Meaning - To reveal a secret.

 Example: "When she accidentally mentioned the surprise party, she

let the cat out of the bag."

 "Once in a blue moon":

Meaning - Very rarely.

 Example: "We only go out to that fancy restaurant once in a blue

moon."

 "Bite the bullet":

Meaning - To accept a difficult situation and do something unpleasant.

 Example: "He decided to bite the bullet and tell his boss about his
mistake."

Collocations:

 "Heavy rain":
While you can say "strong rain," "heavy rain" is a more common and natural
combination.

 Example: "The game was postponed due to heavy rain."

 "Bright future":

"Bright" is often used with "future" to indicate positive potential.

 Example: "She has a bright future ahead of her."

 "Deep sleep":

"Deep" is a natural adjective to use with "sleep" to describe a profound sleep.

 Example: "He was in a deep sleep when the alarm went off."

 "Make a decision":

"Make" is the preferred verb to use with "decision".

 Example: "It's time to make a decision about our next vacation."

 "Sharp mind":

"Sharp" is often used to describe a quick and intelligent mind.

 Example: "The old man still has a sharp mind

References

Ammer, Christine (May 7, 2013). The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms,

Second Edition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Bejoint, H., (2010), The Lexicography of English, Oxford University Press.

Benson,M., Benson, E.,& Ilson, R. (1986) Lexicographical description of

English, cited in Hashemi, M. Masoud, A.& Sohrab D., (2011)
Collocation a neglected aspect in teaching and learning EFL Procedia –
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Cooper Th., (1998), Teaching idioms. Foreign language annals, 31(2).

Cowie, A.P., (1999), English Dictionaries for Foreign Learners, Oxford

University Press. 6. Crystal, (1997), A dictionary of linguistics and
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Fernando, C., (1996), Idioms and Idiomacity. London: Penguin Books.

Gledhill C., (2000), Collocations in Science Writing, Narr, Tübingen.

Goudarzi, Z. & Moini, M. R., (2012),The Effect of Input Enhancement of

Collocations in Reading on Collocation Learning and Retention of EFL
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